Mulheres do Caparao

FAF Coffees has been working with producers of the region of Caparaó and Venda Nova for three years. On our first visit to the area, we found a region that was incredibly beautiful with many small family farms that, like most small producers, were selling almost their entire production to the local cooperatives and dry mills at commodity prices. Just a few of them were taking the risky investment in time and new infrastructure to separate and process differently a small part of their production that they felt had potential. Our first visit was almost entirely taken up visiting these producers and collecting samples of these lots, sometimes representing as little as 20kg of finished coffee. Each small property would produce around 70 bags of coffee per year, and very few of these were specialty grade.

When we returned to our lab to roast and cup these coffees we started to see the potential of the region and its unique terroir in some of the lots. We also began to see the natural groupings of these producers in the valleys and water basins of the region. Alto Caparaó and Três Barras, Women of Caparaó and finally Venda Nova were the groups and areas chosen to start working with.

Our role in this area is to showcase the work these producers are doing and bring them to the next level. We accomplish this through workshops to improve processing methods and introduce new varieties that best complement the terroir.